Politics Ch. 14

The proliferation of alternative media gives viewers

the opportunity to opt out of consuming political news.

During the 1920s, when hundreds of radio stations overcrowded desirable spots on the radio dial, the FCC was created in part to solve this classic

tragedy of the commons.

________________ have changed the media in another important way by providing media outlets and entrepreneurs with space to develop digital-only content.

Blogs

Publishing barons such as Hearst and Pulitzer disappeared after which of the following occurrences?

Commercial radio took away their monopoly on the news

The Watergate burglary was broken by a news leak from the anonymous source

Deep Throat

In the mid-1770s the era's most significant medium of political communication was the daily newspaper.

False

Joseph McCarthy always appeared before television cameras with giant pictures, which he could wave at the camera and portrayed the faces of known communists in the State Department.

False

Politicians and the press have no ability and no incentive to exploit each other.

False

The average politician has trouble getting his or her message to voters because the press only covers a select few politicians.

False

The credibility gap between the press and politicians has been steadily shrinking since the 1970s.

False

When politicians participate in news making, they usually have one or both of two audiences in mind—the public and the campaign donors.

False

News producers, from journalism professors to corporate owners, fondly refer to themselves as occupying the

fourth branch of government.

Tabloid newspapers are allowed to print stories of celebrities and politicians without concern for accuracy because

public figures largely forfeit legal recourse to protect their reputation. Slander and libel do not apply here.

As early as 1940, Fortune magazine reported that most respondents to its reader survey got their news mainly from ________________.

radio

_________________ gave nineteenth-century members of Congress free access to the postal system, and it is still embraced by their present-day counterparts.

The Franking Privilege

Which of the following would produce the most favorable news coverage?

The President visiting a disaster site

Because carrying capacity is limited, on factor used by news organizations in deciding to run a story is its level of controversy: Conflict and disagreement are preferable to consensus.

True

Both newspapers and broadcast media cover the regular sources of important stories in a systematic fashion by permanently assigning reporters to certain venues, traditionally called beats.

True

Frequent elections and a free press can act to ferret out incompetence and malfeasance in office.

True

Illustrating the power of bloggers, in 1998, the Drudge Report scooped Newsweek's Michael Isikoff by suggesting that an inappropriate relationship existed between President Bill Clinton and a White House intern.

True

No working journalist wants to appear to be a publicist for some politician.

True

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine led to the blossoming of political talk radio.

True

The sheer volume of competing news stories chasing media outlets on any given news day makes getting media exposure difficult.

True

The television remains the most popular source of news for Americans.

True

Unit costs are the costs of transmitting a news product to each consumer.

True

Innovation in mass communication has resulted in

a dramatic expansion of news as a consumer product.

During his years in the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt conducted _____________ biweekly press conferences with a regular group of White House correspondents.

about 1,000

The Federal Communication Commission's "fairness doctrine" required that stations

devote a share of their programming to public affairs programming in a balanced and equitable manner.

The Sago mine disaster illustrates the often-inherent incompatibility of trying to be both

first and right

When a government seeks to prevent the publication and dissemination of written and recorded speech, it is exercising

prior restraint